"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." 

No wait, this isn't about Charles Dickens. This is about something that has been bugging me over the last week. Consider this:

City #1 has a problem, we'll call it Their Big Moral Issue. They adamantly oppose Their Big Moral Issue, and passed a non-binding declaration stating that opposition clearly and succinctly. (This position, by the way, is shared by a sizable portion of the US population.)

Within the boundaries of City #1 is storefront whose primary business is in direct opposition to City #1's stance on Their Big Moral Issue. City #1 wishes that this storefront would just pack up and leave town, but that isn't happening because (shockingly) some people in City #1 actually patronize this storefront.

An activist group, who shares City #1's position on Their Big Moral Issue, decides to stage protests at the storefront. These protests are loud and a bit aggressive in trying to convince patrons of the storefront (and the storefront itself) to just go away.

City #1, meanwhile, passes a binding law that assists the activist group in a small way to conduct their protests. (Supporters of the storefront strongly believe the law to be unfair, unjust, and unconstitutional.)

OK, that's City #1. City #2 has exactly the same scenario, only with Their Big Moral Issue is different.

Here's what's bugging me. One city's issue is a Marine recruiting station looking to get soldiers for the war in Iraq. The other city's issue is abortion.

Think about that a moment. Clearly, this is definitely not the best of times...

The two remaining Democratic presidential rivals -- Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama -- are both running on an impassioned platform of change. Both are currently locked in a struggle for the hearts and minds of the Democratic party, and both have been working feverishly to position themselves as the last best hope, our best choice to finally achieve real change.

Where does the change come from?

Clinton is part of the, well, Clintons. Her husband represents a powerful insider block within the Democratic party, whom many describe as the best Democratic president since JFK.

Obama, on the other hand, has the backing of Ted Kennedy -- next to Robert Byrd, the longest sitting Senator currently serving. (He started back in 1962... that's alot of years in the Senate.)

So that's two "change" candidates backed by two of the three or four most influential and powerful Democrats around.

Where does the change come from?

Both of these candidates, along with Senator McCain (another "change" candidate) are currently serving as US Senators. They've all been a part of the federal government, part of the establishment that all hope to "change" according to their rhetoric. If they were so hot on change, what have they been doing for the past few years?

You could argue, of course, that they were working on their fellow senators and congressmen and trying to push their agendas. Well, it doesn't look like they were able to get very much accomplished. What happens when the winner is no longer a Senator? Do they expect their agendas to get magically passed just because they're President? I mean, if they can't get the job done from inside the Senate, what chance do they have to get it done from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Every election time, candidates for whatever office trot out speeches laden in rhetoric, empty promises, and thinly veiled scare tactics. They expect us to stampede to their candidacy and sweep them into office, at which point they seemingly forget what they promised and pretty much do what they (or their lobbyists) want.

I'm tired of being part of the voting herd. If you want my vote, you'd better earn it with something substantial. Not rhetoric, not empty promises.

That would be some real change, wouldn't it?

On a business-related social network recently, I ran across an open question from Mark Smiciklas on an article he was writing:

I am working on a blog post regarding search engine optimization. Do you have a positive or negative experience to share about SEO that I could use in my article? Please note that I will cite your name and company if your answer is used.

What were some of the benefits of using SEO?
What are some of the SEO pitfalls to look out for?
Did your search rankings improve? How many spots? How long did it take?
Do you have any advice on what to look for in a SEO provider?

Here is the response I sent him:

(Forgive my answer for not following the order of your questions, but this is a stream-of-consciousness response that hopefully will make more sense.)

SEO is a tricky bird to explain to non-SEO folks. Unlike most instances of "fixing" things, you could do very little of what needs doing to a site and see improvement. At the same time, you could spend weeks working on it and quickly hit the point of diminishing returns, where lots more effort yields increasingly smaller benefit.

Some 20 years ago one of the big buzzwords was sales automation. Back then, ANYTHING that helped automate a sales person's day was considered fair game. Heck, some companies even tried selling email as a sales automation solution. SEO is something like that today, where lots of folks can do a little bit and call it SEO.

The trick for consumers -- the website owners that want SEO for their sites -- is to make sure that their potential SEO vendor has previously demonstrated success, and in a proper white-hat way. (Just like the old cowboy movies, white hats indicate the good guys; black hat techniques are frowned upon by the search engines and can get you penalized or even kicked out of the results page.)

If your website relies on customers finding you when they're ready to consider your product or service, then SEO is absolutely a must for you and can generate long-term rewards. One of our websites (college-cram.com) provides help to students looking to study; advertising to them when they're not studying is a waste of resources. Showing up on the first page of Google when they look for help is what keeps our numbers so high.

As to how long SEO takes to show results, this can surprise you. We tried an experiment for a local manufacturer last year, creating a reseller site for his product. Using our typical SEO techniques, we secured the domain (AdSpecialtyItem.com) and built the site that landed on the first page of Google for targeted keywords, all within 3 weeks. In fact, our site appeared ahead of the manufacturer's site!

With his permission, I have reprinted the article he wrote on Search Engine Optimization in my notebook here.